Bungie Detail Major Changes For Destiny: The Taken King

Bungie hosted a Destiny: The Taken King livestream last night and explained many of the changes that will be part of Year Two. There’s a huge list of major differences, but perhaps the biggest source of joy for Guardians across the globe will be that their Vault space will be more than doubled, with 72 slots available for guns, 72 slots for armour and 36 slots for everything else.

There’s a lot being done to try and simplify what you do each week, with Crucible marks, which are earned in the PvP Crucible arena, and Vanguard marks, which are earned by tackling PvE bounties, being combined in to one currency, Legendary marks. Currently you can only earn 100 each of Crucible and Vanguard marks per week, and while this limit will be removed but you will still only be able to hold 200 Legendary marks in you tiny, tiny Guardian wallet. Your existing Crucible and Vanguard marks will be converted into Commendations and then further to reputation gains to earn reward packages.

The levelling system is also changing and when The Taken King arrives your character, armour and weapons will be assessed and you will be given a new level based on these stats – if your armour has you at level 34, you’ll start TTK at level 34, of course. There’s a new level cap of 40, which will be a more traditional RPG-style XP-driven levelling system, with your Light level now an assessment of the gear that you have equipped, determining defence and attack stats. New Guardians joining the game will receive a booster that instantly raise their character to level 25, and existing players can use it to upgrade characters that are below that point or create a new one.

It’s a sad “Bye-bye” to Dinklebot and a cheery “Heya!” to Northbot as Nolan North takes of voice duties for your geometric companion. Ghosts will now have shells to collect and these will affect you stats and have abilities to, for example, point out spirit blooms to you when on patrol, while class items also have various perks. The Crucible handler, Shaxx, will sell you new Ghost shells with PvP perks, as well as dishing out week-long PvP bounties that have Nightfall equivalent rewards.

In case you dismantled them before for space, you will be able to buy re-buy exotic weapons and armour using their blueprints, and further upgrade those exotics getting a Year Two upgrade – which will be a noticeable difference, but sadly won’t cover all exotics – by Infusing them with legendary weapons.

But there are tons of other changes that are impossible to keep track of. New to Year Two are quests with a guaranteed treat at the end including class specific rewards. You can track 32 quests and 16 bounties at once, with four easily accessible in the HUD. You’ll have to pledge allegiance to a faction for a week at a time, but ranking them up now guarantees a legendary weapon, and you earn rep for both the faction and Vanguard and Crucible at the same time. The Gunsmith will let you try out guns and will host Armsday Orders every Wednesday, for you to acquire Suros, Hakuh and Omlon weapons.

There’s so many changes, that it basically boils down to… this.

At least next Wednesday we’ll get to see plenty of shooting, as Bungie will be streaming one of The Taken King’s new strikes.

Source: Bungie Twitch, Destiny Reddit